


All that I know is I don't know

by pelli



Category: Vampire Diaries (TV)
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-06-27
Updated: 2013-06-27
Packaged: 2017-12-16 08:10:57
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,200
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/859886
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/pelli/pseuds/pelli
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Prompt: All that I know is I don't know how to be something you miss.</p>
            </blockquote>





	All that I know is I don't know

It’s not easy walking away, especially from her, and especially after everything you’ve both been through lately. He’s relied on her, probably too much, and she’s been there for him without question, and honestly, she’s just been amazing.

He wishes he had have given her a chance years ago instead of spending all this time being a jackass to her; ignoring her, rolling his eyes at her every time she talked (which, let’s be real, is every second possible), and just _hating_ her. He wasted so much time without her, had a little time with her, and now he has to leave.

(He doesn’t _have_ to leave, he just _has_ to. It’s the right thing to do.)

It’s hard making the decision and he probably (definitely) owes her an explanation, but if he _sees_ her, he’s likely to change his mind. (How did he not notice that face, those eyes, until now?) He wants to explain it all to her, but he just can’t, so he tries to explain it to Matt, instead.

He swears it’s so fucking painful to walk away from her, but he hurt her and he can’t stick around in this town, where it feels like she’s the only one he has, while she hates him. He deserves it, too, he thinks because he turned his back on her when she needed him the most, and that probably makes him a bigger ass to her than he was a year ago.

All this talk of enemies, sacrifices and death, though, make it a little easier. He could have _killed_ her, so it’ll be easier if he leaves now before he hurts her worse than he already has. She deserves better and she has Matt waiting in the wings for her.

Matt won’t hurt her like he could.

*

He thinks about her a lot and misses her even more.

He has Jules and the rest of the pack, and it helps, but they’re not Caroline.

The full moon comes and he turns and it’s a little easier this time – having the rest of the pack with him, helping him through it – but then, when he comes to afterward, it’s hard again because Caroline’s face isn’t the first thing he sees.  She’s been there every step of the way so far and he’d gotten used to it; to turning around and her just _being there_ , smiling at him, supporting him.

It feels wrong doing this without her and he just _misses_ her.

*

She thinks about him more than she should.

He was the only one that knew what she was going through and now she’s alone. She knows she isn’t alone in the same sense that Tyler was alone when he was here, but she _is_ alone because no one else here understands what _she’s_ going through.

(They’re all busy saving Elena to even notice that anything’s wrong, anyway.)

She had Tyler and Tyler had her and then he just left without a goodbye, and now, there’s a small part of her that hates him for finding it so easy to walk away from her. That small part of her is the same part that lets herself cry over him once or twice and the part that throws herself into a relationship with Matt.

And it’s easy - to fall back into things with Matt - because he’s still here and he wants her and he doesn’t know about this whole other secret life she has. He’s a nice guy, too; he doesn’t roll his eyes at her, or ignore her, and she knows that he’s not going to just _leave_ without a goodbye.

*

The days leading up to the full moon she’s tense and she wishes he’d just call to let her know he’s okay – that he’s going to make it through this. She doesn’t hear anything, though, and she’s just so angry with him. She’s scared and worried and whole lot of other things that lead her to cancel her plans with Matt and spend the night staring out her window at the moon.

She wonders if he’s okay, how he spent the day and if he thought of her at all; if he thinks at all of last month and how scared they’d both been, but how they had managed to get through it, together.

She wonders, not for the first time, if he misses her as much as she misses him; if there is a little part of him that’s empty and wishing she was there to help him through it again.

*

She tells Matt and then, when he asks, she compels him to forget, but _she_ can’t. She can still remember his face; how it fell when she told him the truth, the way he’d looked at her and the little bit of fear she’d seen in his eyes and she knows in that moment that their relationship has an expiry date.

She tries to push past it but it’s hard to pretend everything is okay when she knows that he knew the truth and chose to forget about it, rather than be there for her. She wants to know when she’s going to be enough for someone; when she’ll be able to tell someone without having to make them forget afterward.

(She remembers how Tyler reacted and she misses him even more. She lets herself wonder what he’s doing, where he is, before shaking her head and moving on.)

*

She runs into Tyler outside the hospital and she wants to smile, to hug him, but he keeps his distance and the air between them is tense. He looks fine, great, and she’s so happy he made it through the transformation, but at the same time, she’s scared because obviously he doesn’t need her like she needs him.

She wants to tell him she missed him, but she can’t read whatever is in his eyes and she doesn’t know what she needs to say to stop him when he turns to leave.

He doesn’t say goodbye this time, either.

She just wants to cry because she’s missed him so much, needed him so much, and he’s _fine._

*

When she comes to he asks if she’s okay, but the rest of his conversation with her is short and the tension is still lingering between them. Her mind is foggy from the vervain, so it takes her a little while to piece everything together, and the words are out of her mouth and she’s watching his face harden before she can realise what she’s said.

“Tyler, you shouldn’t have come back here.”

*

She wants to cry when he tells her why he left; that it was because of her and because he thought she hated him. She sees the emotion on his face as he explains it to her, the relief when she tells him that she could never hate him, and when he reaches for her hand and squeezes it, just briefly, as they walk up the stairs from the tomb, she knows it’s his way of telling her he missed her, and he needs her just as much as she needs him.

*

His second transformation is the only one he ever goes through without Caroline.


End file.
